Actually, Florida Is A Better Job Than Ole Miss, And Here's Why

The Florida Gators have a head coaching vacancy, in case you haven’t heard, and everyone online, naturally, has an opinion on the matter.

Specifically, a debate has broken out over whether Florida would be a better job for Lane Kiffin than his current one at Ole Miss.

I couldn’t help but notice an increasingly noisy rhetoric coming from many blue checkmarks on social media (and within our OutKick ranks) about how Kiffin would be stupid to take the Gators’ head coaching job, which is a flat out asinine claim.

Now, maybe I'm biased — I haven't exactly been shy about announcing my Florida fandom to the world and my readers — but I believe the Gators' coaching gig is a clear upgrade over Kiffin's current job.

I have a lot to say, so if you’ll excuse me, I want to skip the preamble and jump straight into why people are so wrong about this, so let’s get started.

The State Of Florida Has More Talent Readily Available Than The State Of Mississippi

Before you even go any further, let's dispel this myth that high school recruiting is dead in 2025.

Ole Miss has gotten adept at using the transfer portal to their advantage the past few seasons, and kudos to them, but that has been just as much a strategic move born out of necessity than anything else.

Take a look at the last three teams Ole Miss has lost to: Georgia in 2025, and Florida and LSU in 2024. What do those three teams have in common?

They have out-recruited the Rebels at the high school level.

An over reliance on the portal will result in wild fluctuations and inconsistent results, both season-to-season and even game-to-game.

Even their loss to Kentucky last year was a result of similar high school talent profiles.

Look at Florida State over the last two years. Back to back top 10 portal classes with a high number of commits in each, but it hasn't resulted in success because the Seminoles have almost completely neglected recruiting at the high school level.

This isn't to say you can't use the portal, it should just be supplemental rather than your primary roster building strategy. Ole Miss signed 30 players in the last transfer cycle and 26 the year before.

This isn't sustainable.

People point to Ohio State last year as a team with a great portal class, but their roster was 95% complete before they dipped into the portal.

They signed eight players, meaning they could be picky because they already had a ready-made championship-caliber roster that just needed a few holes plugged.

Building an entire roster through the transfer portal all but guarantees a lack of championship depth, and in a league like the SEC, attrition will kill you just as quickly as lack of talent will.

With all that being said, Lane Kiffin could have his teams look more like Ohio State and less like Ole Miss or Florida State if he accepts the Gators' offer.

Florida's recruiting class was ranked 7th last year, and that was with a perennial loser like Billy Napier as head coach. Their worst recruiting class over the last 15 years would still be comparable to Ole Miss's best classes under Kiffin.

Every head coach since Urban Meyer has signed multiple top-10 recruiting classes while in Gainesville except for Jim McElwain, and the week before he was fired in 2017, his class was ranked in the top five and had verbal pledges from players like Kyle Pitts, Dameon Pierce, Matt Coral, and Jamarr Chase.

The state of Florida just has way more to offer from a high school talent pool perspective than Mississippi.

The 50th ranked player in the state of Florida last recruiting cycle was a 4-star and would have been the 12th ranked player in Mississippi. Conversely, the 50th ranked player in Mississippi was unranked nationally.

Florida had 14 of the top-100 nationally ranked players, while Mississippi had three.

It's not even close.

Yes, Florida Has More NIL To Offer Than Ole Miss

People need to stop this rhetoric that "it's not 2015 anymore."

Ole Miss has a very impressive NIL collective, there's no denying that.

But for all this conjecture about the Rebels being flush with cash and the Gators being broke bums, Florida still had a more expensive roster than Ole Miss in 2024 and 2025.

Why do you think the Rebels are even close to the Gators when it comes to spending though?

Because Lane Kiffin was a visionary when he got to Oxford and saw the direction the game was heading, and mobilized the Ole Miss boosters to spend more on their roster. If Kiffin were to take his talents to Florida, he would administer the same wake-up call to Florida's boosters and fanbase, creating an NIL operation that would DWARF Ole Miss's by comparison.

A lot of you haven't seen what the University of Florida looks like when it's rolling, and it shows.

I've spoken to people close to the program, and the prevailing thought is that if Lane Kiffin dons a Florida visor next season, there are boosters worth tens of millions of dollars who haven't donated a dime since 2010 that will be falling all over themselves to help the Gators get back to where they were nearly two decades ago.

Anecdotal? Sure, but it counts for something.

But it isn't just about pay for play, either.

Florida has a direct line to brands like Gatorade and Jordan, who can and have endorsed their athletes recently.

DJ Lagway has sponsorship deals with those two brands in addition to national companies like Verizon and Chipotle. Imagine a handsome, charismatic quarterback like Jaxson Dart in Gainesville.

He would be pulling in eight-figure deals every year in endorsements alone.

I don't see Austin Simmons or Trinidad Chambliss in any Gatorade commercials, do you?

Exposure counts, and the Florida brand, even in a relative down period, is still stronger than Ole Miss's.

And, for what it's worth, Florida has a way more profitable athletic department and is higher in valuation than Ole Miss, which could mean something as we shift towards a profit-sharing model in college football.

"Lane Had A Super Talented Roster Last Year And Didn't Win. Why Would Florida Be Any Different?"

I touched on this briefly in my first point, but yes, the Rebels had one of their best rosters in school history in 2024, and it got them a 10-3 record.

But that isn't Kiffin's fault.

Ole Miss had eight players drafted last year from their "best roster of all-time."

Do you know how many players were drafted from "broke-ass" 8-5 Florida?

Seven!

And that's not counting some of their best players that either elected to come back to school (Austin Barber, Caleb Banks, Tyreak Sapp, and Austin Barber were all projected to go in the top three rounds of the draft), or were not draft eligible (DJ Lagway, Jadan Baugh, Myles Graham, Grayson Howard).

If the four players who opted to return to school declared for the draft, the Gators would have had 11 players selected in last year's class.

There's a reason Florida beat Ole Miss last year, and it's not because Billy Napier is a better coach than Lane Kiffin. The Gators "out-talented" the Rebels, leaving the margin for error razor-thin for Kiffin.

And because the less talented Rebels didn't play a perfect game, the Gators jumped up and bit them.

Quick Hitters

Let's end this thought experiment with some quick hitters about some advantages Florida has over Ole Miss from Lane Kiffin's perspective.

• Kiffin has mentioned recently that the lack of fan support at Ole Miss is something that rubs him the wrong way. He doesn't have to worry about that at Florida. The Gators have a home sellout streak that dates back to 2023, and just this past weekend, 90,000 fans packed the Swamp to watch a fired head coach lead a 2-4 football team against an unranked Mississippi State squad.
• Kiffin recently reconciled with his ex-wife, Layla, who is a UF alum (1996). Her father is also Florida legend John Reaves. I realize everyone is happy in Oxford, but you don't think Layla and her side of the family would love a family reunion in the Sunshine State?
• Speaking of family, Lane's son, Knox, is a quarterback at Oxford High School. That's nice and all, but he isn't even starting currently. I don't think he would be opposed to moving and becoming a starter at Bucholz or PK Younge. He also put Florida (not Ole Miss) in his initial top three schools from a recruiting perspective, and he has been seen as recently as last year sporting a Florida Gators backpack.

Even with all of these things mentioned, it still isn't a foregone conclusion that Kiffin would leave Ole Miss.

It's his decision, and if he's truly happy in Oxford, then more power to him.

But I can't sit idly by any longer and let this slander and libel occur with regard to the head coaching position at the University of Florida not being a top tier job.

Again, maybe that's my Orange and Blue glasses fogging up my view, but that's how I see it.

And if Kiffin actually does become Florida's next head coach, I have a long list of receipts I will need to respond to.